


Work Place Shenanigans

by jameschoi



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Humor, Identity Reveal, Office AU, no beta we die like robins
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:43:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29911608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jameschoi/pseuds/jameschoi
Summary: Talia Al Ghul makes a deal with Jason: if he can survive one year of independence and no vigilantism or revenge, she will give him custody over Damian. She did not intend for Jason to return to Gotham, become Bruce Wayne's secretary, and cause problems on purpose.
Relationships: Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne
Comments: 28
Kudos: 155





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Worst Secretary Ever](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12947934) by [Chrystie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrystie/pseuds/Chrystie), [kate882](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kate882/pseuds/kate882). 



Bruce knows he's in for a ride when the new secretary- hired and approved by multiple levels of HR- comes to his first day of work sporting an “Eat The Rich” muscle tee, ripped jeans, a backwards baseball cap, heelys, and a smug, cocky grin that says he knows exactly what he’s doing.

Bruce also recognizes this as a battle of wills.

He welcomes the new hire into his office, offers him a seat- and stomachs a groan when the kid immediately props his feet on Bruce’s desk- and gets a spare suit jacket out.

“Wayne Enterprises does have a dress code, and as you will be people’s first point of contact to reach me, I will need you to make a good impression. For today, you can borrow a spare suit jacket I keep for emergencies, and please remove your cap.”

The kid looks shocked and silently acquiesces. Bruce sits down at his desk and gently shoves his feet off under the guise of organizing his papers.

“Joseph Peters, is it? Tam Fox will be by shortly to give you a tour and show you the ropes. In the meantime, why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

The kid sits up a little straighter. “What do you want to know, bitch?”

“What’s your work history? What do you want to get out of your time here?” Bruce asks.

 _How did you get hired? Why are you here?_ Bruce does not ask.

“I don’t have one, and I got bored. What’s it to you?” Peters responds and Bruce tries very hard not to pinch his nose.

_Did Tim put you up to this?_

Luckily, Tam’s knock at the door interrupts them, and Bruce sends Peters off with her. Well, he’s certainly wide awake now.

* * *

“How was work today, Master Bruce?” Alfred asks as he takes Bruce’s coat and helps him into the house.

Bruce thinks back on the most interesting work day he’s had since Jason sat in on a business meeting between Wayne Enterprises and Queen Industries all those years ago. Peters spent the morning shadowing Tam, but in the afternoon, she had to leave him the reins and get her own work done. The first thing Peters accomplished by himself at Wayne Enterprises was change the office ringtones to Nyan Cat and the hold music to Never Gonna Give You Up. The second thing he accomplished was telling Luther to “go fuck yourself, you donkey faced, pig brained, rotten egg smelling bastard.” Peters made five cups of coffee and put them in weird places around Bruce’s office. He spent the rest of his time loudly talking on the phone about communism and guillotines.

Despite his headache, Bruce can't help but allow himself a small smile.

“My day was,” Bruce pauses. “My day was quite unusual, Alfred.”

* * *

Jason locks the door behind him and carelessly tosses Bruce’s jacket on the couch before falling face first onto the bed in the other room. Today was harder than he anticipated.

When Talia bet him to prove himself independent for a year, she intended that he retire somewhere obscure and keep his head down. One of the terms of their agreement was no violence, and she had implied that he should go to therapy and focus on mental health. Instead, Jason threw himself back into Gotham head first and got a job as Bruce’s secretary.

It paid well, and it was a perfect opportunity to piss Bruce off.

Jason wouldn’t consider himself a petty person- okay no, that was a lie. Jason is definitely a petty person, and he intends to make Bruce’s life a living hell.

Jason always knew he would have to tread a fine line as Bruce’s employee between terrorizing the man and keeping his job. He failed to account for his emotional reaction to seeing Bruce again. He looked different in person than he did in newspaper clippings or through the scope of a sniper rifle- not that Jason would know anything about the latter. Of course not.

Every time Jason thought of Bruce, his stomach curdled in an uncomfortable knot of hurt and rage. The Lazarus Pit and years of trauma painted over Jason’s good memories of Bruce with negative tones and pain. The facade Bruce wears for the media and the physical and temporal distance Jason put between him and his father made Jason forget about the soft looks Bruce gave him and the quiet moments they shared. So when he stood in front of Bruce for the first time in almost four years and Bruce gave him that look of shock, exasperation, and a hint of fondness, he saw instead Batman’s face when he caught a scrawny little kid taking off the last tire. He saw instead Bruce’s face when Jason called a wealthy donor a “cock sucking cockroach” at a gala after she made a comment about Jason’s upbringing. He saw instead-

Jason got overwhelmed and quiet when he “met” Bruce today, and that was very much not the plan.

He spent the whole afternoon making up for it though, and if Jason falls asleep that night clutching Bruce’s jacket, that is nobody’s business but his own.

* * *

The second day is just as interesting as the first. Bruce has no idea what today would bring, but he steels himself for the worst (and the funniest) as he walks into the building.

Wayne Enterprises is not on fire yet, and that is a good start.

Peters sits at his desk, early for work but scrolling on his phone. When he hears Bruce enter, he makes eye contact and nods to acknowledge him before immediately turning back to his phone and ignoring Bruce. He points to a cup of coffee at the corner of his desk. It's from Starbucks and says “Bryce Whine” on the side.

“Good morning, Joseph,” Bruce says. “What’s on the agenda for today?

“I dunno,” Peters says. “Probably some boring meeting with a stuffy crook.”

Bruce takes a deep breath.

He picks up the coffee with his name (?) on it and enters his office, leaving the door cracked open so he can monitor Peters. He takes a sip and immediately spits it back out. It is plain black coffee with- is that salt? He can hear Peters laughing at him from the adjacent room. Bruce makes a mental note to have Alfred make an extra thermos for him before he leaves for work.

Peters sits scrolling on his phone or playing phone apps with the volume turned all the way up for most of the morning. He answers the office phone with "we're sorry, you have reached a number that has been disconnected and is no longer in service" until Bruce tells him to stop. He checks the caller list later to find it full of important investors.

Peters disappears around lunch time, and Bruce finds his absence very concerning. He hopes Peters is on lunch break but later learns that he is helping himself to office supplies. All the spare office supplies. **All** the spare office supplies.

After lunch, Peters paints his nails, answers the phone (introducing himself as "Jones BBQ and Foot Massage" for some reason), and convinces employees on another floor to have an office chair race. He does remind Bruce about a meeting and spends about an hour responding to emails.

Bruce later checks up on the emails Peters sent and finds that somehow Peters managed to respond rudely only to the people and businesses Bruce disproved of and kindly and respectfully to the ones he liked. As this was his second day at work, Bruce doubted Peters had met the CEOs or knew their history with Wayne Enterprises.

_(Bruce asked later what Peters' criteria was for a decent response. Peters just shrugged._

_"I don't know," he said. "I thought I was being rude to all of them. I'll have to make sure the others know I hate them later."_

_But as time went on, Peters continued sending hateful messages to hateful people and respectful messages to people Bruce respected.)_

By the time Bruce leaves work, he feels as though he had fallen into an alternate universe where nothing made sense, but Bruce had seen alternate universes and this is nothing like them.

* * *

The first few weeks working with Joseph Peters were quite interesting.

Every time Bruce checks on Peters, he’s painting his nails a different color (Which, really? How many shades does he have? And when does he remove the previous nail polish?). When Bruce hears Peters answering the phone with a prank greeting someone would get off a Buzzfeed article, Bruce tells him to “answer the phone normally or be creative and come up with something that isn’t older than the Stone Age.” He quickly regrets it. The filing system completely changes, and Bruce can’t find anything anymore. Peters replaces all of Bruce’s pens with glittery, multicolored gel pens (and every time Bruce replaces them, they're back to gel pens within the day).

One day, Bruce arrives to work to find the entire office covered in aluminum foil. He pretends that everything is normal at first, sitting on his aluminum chair and peeling the aluminum off the computer monitor without comment. But as the day goes by, Bruce finds himself more impressed and more annoyed. Everything- every pen, stapler, and file- is wrapped in foil, and he has to peel it off carefully and loudly before using it. It is uncomfortable and cold and loud.

Peters’ clothing is certainly- hmmm, let’s say- different. He still wears the heelys every day, but he leaves behind the baseball cap. On days when he wears casual attire, Peters wears t-shirts with radical messages on them, but Bruce manages to convince him to wear a suit jacket and unripped jeans with it. Baby steps. When Peters shows up in formal attire, he wears a woman’s blouse and pencil skirts. Bruce isn’t uncomfortable with Peters wearing women's clothing; he’s just in awe that Peters found some that fits his broad shoulders and thick thighs. He might ask where Peters shops in case Dick sees him and gets jealous.

Bruce knows that he could and should fire Peters.

But Peters is a kid. He’s only just out of high school by the looks of him, and somehow he managed to fake a resume, background checks, and interview so well that Wayne Enterprises hired him. The kid gets his work done, and small glimpses of that intelligence shine through occasionally. If Bruce can redirect his skills and effort to helping Wayne Enterprises instead of being a nuisance, he would have a very valuable worker.

Peters reminds Bruce of every meeting or call. Somehow, every call and email gets answered, and Bruce has to try to pretend he’s not thoroughly amused and somewhat grateful that all of Luthor’s emails go immediately to junk mail. One morning, Bruce arrives to work to see Peters asleep at his desk with paperwork open because he stayed late determined to work when Bruce couldn't see.

The kid is also trustworthy. Despite the controlled chaos he brings to Wayne Enterprises and his unknown background, Peters has never embezzled from Bruce, tried to black mail him, or even go digging into Wayne Enterprises’ many secrets. He shows up reliably and does not try to sabotage the company. He has no connections to rival corporations, and he treats the other employees well. When he asks other office workers what they thought of Peters, nobody has anything bad to report about his behavior beyond his organization system or his clothing.

Bruce also didn’t want to fire him. Sure, he comes home every evening with a headache, and the pranks are annoying. But Bruce hadn’t laughed like this since Jason died. Joseph Peters could never replace his son, but he is too similar for Bruce to turn him away. If Jason had lived, they would be around the same age, and the two would probably get along well. Too well.

So Bruce puts up with the disappearing office supplies and the snarky attitude, and he keeps the kid.


	2. Chapter 2

Tim comes to the office.

He had stayed away for a few weeks to focus on online school at Bruce’s insistence. In his time away, Bruce got a new secretary, and if anything he heard about Joseph Peters was true, Tim couldn’t stay away any longer.

The encounter doesn't go as he hoped. Joseph Peters is younger than he expected. They look just older than Tim, but they look nothing like Tim’s peers. They must have been on the football team or a weight training club in school, but they are wearing a woman’s blouse, a skirt, and heels. He watches as they return to their desk and pull out makeup, a mirror, and some nail polish from the top drawer. They start applying their makeup for a moment before looking up at Tim. Their green eyes narrow.

That's weird. Tim could have sworn they were blue before.

“Can I help you?” They ask, sounding like they very much do not want to help him.

“I’m Tim Drake, he/him. I work here,” Tim says, offering his hand to shake. They ignore it and go back to applying their concealer. Tim clears his throat.

“I can see that. You didn’t answer my question.” They say.

“I- uh. I don’t really need help? I just wanted to meet you. I’ve heard interesting things.” Tim says. Their scowl deepens. Did Tim say the wrong thing? He hopes not. They don't respond though, so Tim decides he had to be a little more clear. “What are your name and pronouns?”

“Joseph Peters. He/him.” He's doing his eyes now. Purple to match the purple nail polish on his desk. It has Batgirl’s logo on it.

“Oh, nice to meet you,” Tim says. “You- uh, do you like Batgirl?”

“She’s neat.”

“Okay. I’m going to go talk to Bruce? I hope you have a nice day?” Tim isn't quite sure where to go with this. Joseph rolls his eyes.

“Bruce isn’t here yet.”

“Oh. Can I sit with you until he gets here?”

“You can do whatever you want,” Joseph says. “It’s your life.”

Joseph doesn’t really seem to like him. Maybe he’s just not an early person? Tim knows he has to have a few cups of coffee before he’s coherent. That could be the same with Joseph. He watches as Joseph puts away his makeup and starts texting. The bottle of nail polish sits forgotten near the computer monitor.

* * *

Tim Drake came into the office.

It's fine. He works for Bruce, and the replacement is bound to show up some time. Somehow, Jason still finds himself caught off guard, and he bites back bitter rage as the kid stands awkwardly in front of Jason's desk, shifting from foot to foot and wringing his hands as if he doesn't belong there more than Jason does. Jason elects to ignore him and do his makeup, but the kid is nothing if not persistent.

Jason holds in his anger and hurt- trying to remember the breathing exercises Talia and the Ducra taught him but not quite caring if he doesn't- as the replacement tries to make conversation. Jason responds with curt answers and harsh looks, but Tim Drake, famous for his intellect and observation skills, doesn't get the hint. Instead, he takes a seat at Jason's desk and watches him.

Jason pulls out his phone instead of doing his nails, hoping texting instead of talking will give even clearer signals.

**Jason to Rich Asshole**

_Your kid is here and you aren't paying me to babysit._

**Jason to T**

_The replacement wont leave me alone._

**T to Jason**

_My beloved isn't paying you to clean up bloodstains._

**Jason to T**

_No, but he has plenty of janitors who can and will be discrete_

Tim tries to make conversation once again. He asks something about Jason's work experience or schooling or something. He can't really hear him over the roaring in his ears.

**Rich Asshole to Jason**

_What are your babysitting rates?_

**Jason to Rich Asshole**

_The parents don't typically pay me. Something about "not supposed to actually sit on the child?"_

Tim tries again. "Do you play any video games?"

"I don't have the time," Jason says. He does not ask if Tim plays video games. The replacement sighs.

**T to Jason**

_Scale. 1-10_

**Jason to T**

_Bad._

The replacement finally takes a hint and pulls out his own phone. They sit in silence for a while, Tim reading something on his phone and Jason texting Talia about a panic attack. Bruce arrives a few minutes later and Tim follows him into the office. Jason took a moment to calm his breathing. 

He angrily picks at what was left of yesterday's nail polish- an anxious habit that he had developed from being around Bruce all day. Jason tries to think of anything petty he had planned for today but his anger left his mind empty. When he tries to come up with anything new, he can only think of the violent things the Lazarus Pit whispers to him at night. Jason reminds himself of his deal with Talia. No, maybe today is a day for keeping his head down.

Jason opens up Bruce's calendar. Not much planned for today. Jason opens Bruce's email. Not much unread today. Jason looks for something to file. He did it all yesterday. Jason pulls up an East Of Eden ebook on his phone and blocks out the world. Before he knows it, Adam Trask is getting discharged from the army a second time, and Bruce is hovering over his desk. Tim is either long gone or working somewhere Jason can't see.

"Are you okay?" Bruce asks. It's almost offensive how concerned he sounds. (Or at least, how concerned he sounds to someone with years of practice reading Bruce's body language and tone).

"Fine," Jason says.

"You haven't moved since I got here, and forgive me if I get worried when you're silent."

"I said I'm fine."

Bruce sighs. He reenters his office and spares Jason one last glance from the doorway.

"I'm fine!"

Jason knows he sounds like a petulant kid. Like the Jason he was back before his death. But he's spending too much mental energy to hold himself together and refrain from violence. Tonight would be a great night for vigilantism if he didn't make Talia a promise. Maybe he would look for a gym with a punching bag tomorrow. It's too late for today- all he can handle is a cup of tea and a nap- but it would be helpful for future reference.

Lunch time rolls around, and Jason takes a walk around town. He's not used to this part of town, where casual means business clothing and buildings shine. The municipal government hasn't given up on the rich, white folks yet, and it shows. Still, he breaths in the Gotham air and counts to ten and counts to ten again. Jason makes a few laps around the block before returning to work.

He has enough time left to make up for this morning. He pretends to start working- and if he does accomplish anything, it's nobody's business but his own- so he has an excuse to stay late tonight. He answers the phone with half-assed comments like "Buddy the elf, what's your favorite color" or "Bob's ambulance, you maul 'em and we haul 'em." Oliver Queen calls- from business to business because League stuff goes straight to Bruce's phone- and harassing him because the highlight of Jason's day. After about three minutes, Queen hangs up, and a minute after that, Jason can hear Bruce laugh and say "no, I'm not firing him."

Eventually, evening comes, and Bruce leaves. Jason quickly gets to work and replaces all of the pictures in the office with Nicholas Cage's face. He also throws all the chipped nail polish into the grooves of Bruce's keyboard for good measure. 

Jason picks up Indian food on his way home. He puts a kettle on for masala chai and gets changed for bed. He picks up a book of Arabic poetry laying on his coffee table and pretends the scent of strong spices and comforting words are enough to simulate Talia and Damian's presence. This is all for them. He can handle a few encounters with the replacement if it means getting Damian out of the League. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't going to finish this chapter tonight, but I left it for an hour and y'all hit me with 36 kudos, 4 comments, and 7 bookmarks. Y'all need to chill (but also don't). Thank you so much <3 Such strong positive reinforcement on my first fic? It means the world to me


End file.
